Premiere Watch: Youth of May, Mine

0 May 12, 2021

by Benjamin Liu

It’s a week of premieres to get excited about! Up-and-comer Lee Do-hyun stars in a compelling romance melo, and Lee Bo-young and Kim Seo-hyung co-star in Mine, a chaebol melo. Yes, you read that right. Even if Mine doesn’t turn out amazing (and I’m hoping it does), their combined star power will likely have an effect on planetary alignment.

Youth of May

Time slot: Monday & Tuesday
Broadcaster: KBS
Genre: Period, melo, human
Episode count: 12

Reasons to watch: To call a drama a “retro human melodrama” just sounds strange, so let’s flesh out this drama instead, shall we? The setting is the civil unrest that took place in May of 1980 (which is responsible for the “retro” tag), and it gives the drama’s story a really strong, strife-filled backdrop. Let us hope that it adds to the storytelling only, and not to the current discomfiture with the treatment of Korean history by its entertainment media. Our main characters are Lee Do-hyun (a med student), and Go Min-shi, the nurse he falls in love with. We all know melodramas are about highs, lows, and a sea of emotions, but adding the “human” onto that will, I hope, ground the entire thing into something fantastic.

Mine

Time slot: Saturday & Sunday
Broadcaster: tvN
Genre: Mystery, thriller, human, melo
Episode count: 16

Reasons to watch: The thought of Lee Bo-young and Kim Seo-hyung starring together in a drama is enough to get me interested on its own, but throw them into a chaebol melodrama and you have my full attention. Details on the actual meat of this story have been pretty slim, but we do know that both women are married into a very powerful chaebol family. Palace or prison? Heaven or hell? Whether the two sisters-in-law will be at each others’ throats, or become confidants and friends, is left to be seen, but either way I’m betting on a lot of glitz, glam, and gaslighting.

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